Microsoft Word Printing Issue - Condensed Text - Compressed Text - Gibberish - Jibberish - Hieroglyphic

At my place of employment, Team Fishel, I work in the Information Services department. We encountered a problem with Microsoft Word documents that were protected for form fields. When the form was printed, the text within the form would overlap on top of each other and create a single hieroglyphic character per line. We discovered they were normal characters, they had just stacked on top of each other. We have found a solution that works!

Here is an example of what the problem will look like on the screen:
Example of Printing Issue - Gibberish

This issue would happen on both the screen and the printed paper. We had gone through exhaustive troubleshooting with no luck. We checked Print Driver versions, printed to other printers, tried various compatibility settings in Word, we launched Word using Start > Run... by typing in winword /a to use the default program settings, we deleted the normal.dot file and let word recreate it, we captured the print job to a PRN file and analyzing it, selected all the text and did a CTL+Q to remove the text formatting, we scrubbed the document of meta data using a 3rd party program, and even recreated the document from scratch! Nothing worked!!!! The problem just didn't go away...

We broke down and paid a fee for Microsoft Support to help us. Their support tech logged into the machine using Placeware (a desktop sharing program). He had me try a variety of settings and we stumbled upon the solution!!!

STEP 1:
Close out of Microsoft Word

STEP 2:
Open up Microsoft Word. There is no need to open the document you want to print.

STEP 3:
Go to...
Tools > Options... > Print (Tab) >
Microsoft Word - Tools - Options - Print Tab

STEP 4:
Uncheck "Background printing"
Click OK

STEP 5:
Close out of Microsoft Word

STEP 6:
Browse to the document you want to print and double click it or open Microsoft Word and do a File > Open...

STEP 7:
PRINT!

If this solution fixes your problem, please post a comment on my blog. It gives me warm fuzzies inside when I get comments. By the way, if you know of anyone who has this problem with Microsoft Word, email them the link to this page. Good luck!

Brian

Comments

Wow!! Thanks it really worked

by Anonymous (not verified) - 05/13/2013 - 16:23

Wow!! Thanks it really worked :D

BIG THANKS! Why Microsoft

by Brian Kelly (not verified) - 04/18/2013 - 16:01

BIG THANKS! Why Microsoft hasn't corrected this bug is beyond me.

THANK YOU!!! Saved me hours

by Anonymous (not verified) - 04/04/2013 - 16:11

THANK YOU!!! Saved me hours of re-work.

Thank you – grazie tanto –

by Anonymous (not verified) - 03/11/2013 - 12:25

Thank you – grazie tanto – dziękuję bardzo – muchas grasias – danke!!!

That fixed it!!! Thanks a

by Chelsey (not verified) - 03/01/2013 - 14:31

That fixed it!!! Thanks a million for your help :)

Brian -- you are not a

by KLM (not verified) - 02/21/2013 - 19:57

Brian -- you are not a bonehead. you are THE BEST! Solved my problem. Many thanks.

Worked for me. Thanks.

by Anonymous (not verified) - 12/10/2012 - 19:23

Worked for me. Thanks.

Thank you SO much! I had a

by Anonymous (not verified) - 11/30/2012 - 13:05

Thank you SO much! I had a paper due in about an hour and had reached complete and utter panic. Thanks again.

Thank you for this wonderful

by Carolyn (not verified) - 11/07/2012 - 14:01

Thank you for this wonderful tip. It worked perfectly in Word 2010.

Unfortunately, I am having the same issues in Excel 2010. Any advice on how to correct the same issue in Excel??

Thanks ahead of time!

Thank you so very much, and

by Anonymous (not verified) - 10/02/2012 - 01:29

Thank you so very much, and also a thank you to the kind person who commented with instructions regarding how to fix the problem in Word 2010.

I'm a young teacher and I

by Scot (not verified) - 09/19/2012 - 23:40

I'm a young teacher and I thought I had to start over on a whole night of lesson planning. Thankfully your method worked, though, so kudos to you!

Brian, What a weird problem,

by Kenny Mc (not verified) - 09/14/2012 - 12:27

Brian,

What a weird problem, with an even weirder solution! The solution worked! Glad you had posted this. Kenny Mc

Thanks for this. It worked

by Zoe (not verified) - 09/14/2012 - 06:46

Thanks for this. It worked for me when I finally found out where the Options were hiding. The real question is, why does it suddenly happen? Very strange.

Thanks. That fixed my

by JimG (not verified) - 09/11/2012 - 16:36

Thanks. That fixed my problem.

Thank you SO MUCH!!!! I've

by Anonymous (not verified) - 08/30/2012 - 14:46

Thank you SO MUCH!!!! I've struggled with this for years AND various versions of Office.

Best -

sc

Thank you for your advice -

by Anonymous (not verified) - 08/25/2012 - 20:40

Thank you for your advice - on compressed text. The solution works!

Thanks! I was stuck and

by Anonymous (not verified) - 08/22/2012 - 04:04

Thanks! I was stuck and couldn't figure out what to do. Having a new version, I really had to hunt to find out how to stop background printing. I sure am glad you figured it out!

My thanks too. I had pages

by Val (not verified) - 09/14/2012 - 20:16

My thanks too. I had pages and pages of tables that I thought I'd have to redo.

Brian, Thank you. In word

by Anonymous (not verified) - 08/16/2012 - 11:06

Brian,

Thank you. In word 2010, you click, "File", "Options","Advanced", scroll down to "Print" and uncheck "Print in background."

Regards,

Matt

Thank you for this - my

by Anonymous (not verified) - 08/13/2012 - 06:28

Thank you for this - my colleague has been having problems for months! I'm using her computer and encountered the same issue and this has fixed it. Brilliant - she'll be delighted when she returns from holiday and finds it fixed.

This works. Was difficult to

by varun (not verified) - 08/10/2012 - 20:53

This works. Was difficult to find print options in office 2007, best was to learn something real. Thanks a ton.

It worked! My mom (who is

by Sarah (not verified) - 06/11/2012 - 21:17

It worked! My mom (who is technologically challenged) encountered this problem. We couldn't figure it out, but thank God for google! This was the first link that came up and I was so surprised at how easy it was to fix! Thank you so much!

Is there a similar fix for

by Anonymous (not verified) - 06/08/2012 - 12:54

Is there a similar fix for Publisher?
I have a document where the letters are scrunching together on printout. Looks fine on the screen.

Worked like a dream, thx!

by Anonymous (not verified) - 06/05/2012 - 21:31

Worked like a dream, thx! (BTW - never had this problem until windows 7)

Brilliant. Resolves a lot of

by Anonymous (not verified) - 05/21/2012 - 12:02

Brilliant. Resolves a lot of frustration!

Well, our IT person was

by koolkate (not verified) - 05/16/2012 - 14:27

Well, our IT person was skeptical but it worked! Thank you so much. Sorry you had to pay to get an answer!! :)

Thank you for this fix. I

by Anonymous (not verified) - 05/10/2012 - 11:40

Thank you for this fix. I have encountered this problem for six years. Six years of intermittent exasperation, blaming everything from HP to Microsoft to Corel... and now I am at peace.

Perfecto! Out of the top

by Tbone (not verified) - 04/11/2012 - 11:43

Perfecto! Out of the top dozen or so results after Google searching, this is the only one that fixed the problem. Thanks!

TA DA!!! Fixed our problem!

by Kym (not verified) - 03/29/2012 - 19:47

TA DA!!! Fixed our problem! Thanks VERY much!!

Thanks very much!

by Anonymous (not verified) - 03/27/2012 - 18:12

Thanks very much!

WORKED LIKE A CHARM...THANK

by ek (not verified) - 03/20/2012 - 15:18

WORKED LIKE A CHARM...THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was perfect - quick and

by Anonymous (not verified) - 03/08/2012 - 02:02

That was perfect - quick and easy. Thank you

Your fix worked like a charm

by Paul C (not verified) - 03/05/2012 - 16:32

Your fix worked like a charm with Word 2010. Thanks!!!

Superb! Fixed the issue with

by Daniel Ernst (not verified) - 02/28/2012 - 11:23

Superb! Fixed the issue with Word 2010. Wouldn't of had a clue otherwise. Thanks so much!

Hi Brian! you saved a teacher

by kmat521 (not verified) - 02/23/2012 - 16:21

Hi Brian!
you saved a teacher a lot of work retyping and searching fruitlessly for an answer! MERCI BEAUCOUP! for a really useful post! This solved my case in less than a few minutes!!!! I am in exams and need this work daily...you are a god!!!!

Thanks a million. I went to

by BlokeInOZ (not verified) - 02/21/2012 - 09:00

Thanks a million.
I went to the window icon (I run vista and windows 2007) and after clicking on it go to word options button. Click on there and find print options and uncheck them all. Beeeeewtiful!
ONYA mate

Your solution for compressed

by Rus (not verified) - 02/01/2012 - 10:54

Your solution for compressed text worked for me in MS Word 2010. It was very similar to the intstructions for 2007. Options/Advanced/scroll down to printing/uncheck background printing. Thanks!

Thanks Brian, this issues has

by Chris J Adams (not verified) - 01/23/2012 - 12:38

Thanks Brian, this issues has been bugging (no pun intended) random members of my organization for about three years.

This fixed the issue on Word

by Rivas (not verified) - 12/07/2011 - 11:43

This fixed the issue on Word 2007. I will keep monitoring if any errors appear on users computer.
thank you!

Worked very well on my word

by Matt (not verified) - 11/15/2011 - 12:58

Worked very well on my word doc that all of the sudden compressed and I had no idea what to do. Everything I tried didn't work. Thanks for your help!

Worked nicely on my problem

by IHAJ (not verified) - 10/21/2011 - 07:36

Worked nicely on my problem thank you. Text was displayed compressed in Print View in Calibri, not in other fonts. Happended when printing, Printing to another printer fixed it temporarily. Your method fixed permanently. Facilities management are still "working on it" but as far as I'm concerned it is fixed. Thanks

Worked like a charm but using

by Dave (not verified) - 10/11/2011 - 10:22

Worked like a charm but using Office 2007 used the alt route throughthe window buttom, top right. Why does it change from good to bad though?? either way good fix - now go get all warm and fuzzy!!

Thank you, we were able to

by Anonymous (not verified) - 09/18/2011 - 22:42

Thank you, we were able to fix our problem within less than a minute.

Our daughter had typed her homework and our kitten must have walked on the keyboard and triggered the background text function. We thought she was going to have to retype her homework.

Thank you again!

how did this change on me to

by Anonymous (not verified) - 09/17/2011 - 20:34

how did this change on me to begin with?.....my history prof was willing to discuss with me the progression of going from one format in my paper to another - when all I saw was a few letters and the dark boxes, my heart sank. Thank you for possibly saving my grade. Stupid Computers! Thanks so much.

Thanks so much for sharing

by Malia (not verified) - 09/13/2011 - 12:23

Thanks so much for sharing this info. My office got a new printer yesterday and today I was experiencing the compressed text. Your tip did the trick! Thanks for the clear directions.

I tried it in Word 2010 and

by Anonymous (not verified) - 09/11/2011 - 09:08

I tried it in Word 2010 and it does not seem to work. The problem persists and my printer is still printing the first two pages on top of each other. Any ideas?

Wow - thanks so much. This

by Anonymous (not verified) - 09/08/2011 - 14:43

Wow - thanks so much. This worked. I tried many other things, with no success. Thanks very much for sharing this valuable information!!!

You rock! Worked like a

by MJ (not verified) - 08/30/2011 - 18:01

You rock! Worked like a charm...

Thanks for sharing. This was

by RLO (not verified) - 08/30/2011 - 16:06

Thanks for sharing. This was very helpful and when I scrolled down I was able to see comments relating directly to Win7. FABULOUS!!!!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH! It fixed

by Anonymous (not verified) - 08/24/2011 - 18:49

THANK YOU SO MUCH!
It fixed my issue!!